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The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) by Ida Husted Harper

I >> Ida Husted Harper >> The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2)




This may apprize the friends & relatives of D. Anthony, that,
during his residence with us, he has been an affectionate consort,
excellent, consistant in the School, of steady deportment and
conversation, being an example for us to follow when we are
separated. We sincerely wish his preservation in all things
laudable and believe we can with propriety hereunto set our names.

Elihu Marshall, Charles Clement, John Taber, Stephen Willitz, Henry
Cox, Frederick A. Underhill, William Seamen.

There is a still more highly valued testimonial from the principal, the
noble and dignified Richard F. Mott, who was held in loving reverence
by all the distinguished Quaker families that confided their sons and
daughters to his wise and tender care:

Daniel Anthony has been an assistant here & we can aprise his
friends that he has faithfully discharged his duty in that
particular, has been a very agreeable companion & his conduct
remarkably correct & exemplary, which, joined to his pleasant &
obliging disposition, has gained him our esteem & affection.

We sincerely wish his prosperity, spiritually & temporally, & shall
gratefully remember him and his services.

On behalf of the sitting-room circle, R.F. MOTT.
Boarding School, 4 M., 1 D., 1814.

The profession of teacher did not appeal to hard-headed Humphrey
Anthony, and when Daniel came back with his brain full of ambitious
projects and with a thorough distaste for farming, and his sisters,
with many airs and graces and a feeling of superiority over the girls
in the neighborhood, Father Anthony declared that no more children of
his should go away to boarding-school. The fact that young Daniel was
skilled in mechanics and mathematics, able to superintend intelligently
all the work on the farm and to make a finer scythe than any man in the
shop, did not modify the father's opinion. When John, the next boy, was
old enough and the mother began to urge that he be sent to school, the
father offered him his choice to go or to stay at home and work that
year for $100. This was a large sum for those days, it out-weighed the
mother's arguments, John remained at home and regretted it all the rest
of his life.

[Illustration: WEST END OF KITCHEN IN OLD HOMESTEAD.]

The Anthony and Read farms were adjoining a mile east of Adams, and lay
upon the first level or "bench" of the Green mountains. From their
door-yards the ascent of the mountains began, and only the Hoosac in a
deep ravine separated them from the base of "Old Greylock." The crops
were raised on the "intervale" and the cattle pastured on the mountain
side. Adams was then a sleepy New England village, and the Hoosac was a
lovely stream, whose waters were used for the flocks and for the grist
and saw-mills; but in later years the village became a manufacturing
center and the banks of the pretty river were lined for miles with
great factories.

In early times wealthy Quakers had a school in their home or door-yard
for their own children. Those of the neighborhood were allowed to
attend at a certain price, and in this way undesirable pupils could be
kept out. At the Anthony residence this little school-house stood
beneath a great weeping willow beside the front gate, and among the
pupils was Lucy Read. She was the playmate of the sisters, and young
Dan was the torment of their lives, jumping out at them from unexpected
corners, eavesdropping to learn their little secrets and harassing them
in ways common to boys of all generations, and she never hesitated to
inform him that he was "the hatefullest fellow she ever knew." When
Daniel returned from boarding-school with all the prestige of several
years' absence, and was made master of the little home-school, one of
his pupils was this same Lucy Read, now a tall, beautiful girl with
glossy brown hair, large blue eyes and a fine complexion, the belle of
the neighborhood. The inevitable happened, childish feuds were
forgotten, and teacher and pupil decided to become husband and wife.
Then arose a formidable difficulty. The Anthonys were Quakers, the
Reads were Baptists, and a Quaker was not permitted to "marry out of
meeting." Love laughed at rules and restrictions eighty years ago, just
as it does to-day, and Daniel refused to let the Society come between
him and the woman of his choice, but Lucy had many misgivings. Thanks
to her father's ideas she had been brought up in a most liberal manner,
allowed to attend parties, dance and wear pretty clothes to her heart's
content, and it was a serious question with her whether she could give
up all these and adopt the plain and severe habits of the Quakers. She
had a marvelous voice, and, as she sang over her spinning-wheel, often
wished that she might "go into a ten-acre lot with the bars down" so
that she could let her voice out to its full capacity. The Quakers did
not approve of singing, and that pleasure also would have to be
relinquished. That the husband could give up his religious forms and
accept those of the wife never had been imagined.

Love finally triumphed, and the young couple were married July 13,
1817. A few nights before the wedding Lucy went to a party and danced
till four o'clock in the morning, while Friend Daniel sat bolt upright
against the wall and counted the days which should usher in a new
dispensation. A committee was sent at once to deal with Daniel, and
Lucy always declared he told them he "was sorry he married her," but he
would say, "No, my dear, I said I was sorry that in order to marry the
woman I loved best, I had to violate a rule of the religious society I
revered most." The matter was carefully talked over by the elders, and
as he had said he was sorry he had to violate the rule, and as the
family was one of much influence, and as he was their most highly
educated and cultivated member, it was unanimously decided not to turn
him out of meeting.[2] Lucy learned to love the Friends' religion and
often said she was a much more consistent Quaker than her husband, but
she never became a member of the Society, declaring she was "not good
enough." She did not use the "plain language," though she always
insisted that her husband should do so in addressing her; nor did she
adopt the Quaker costume, but she dressed simply and wore little
"cottage" straw bonnets with strings tied demurely under her chin and
later had them made of handsome shirred silk, the full white cap-ruche
showing inside. She sang no more except lullabies to the babies when
they came, and then the Quaker relatives would laugh and ask her why
she did it. Her long married life was very happy, notwithstanding its
many hardships, and she never regretted accepting her Quaker lover.

The previous summer Daniel had helped his father prepare the lumber and
build a large two-story addition to his house, and in return he gave to
his son the lumber for a new home, on a beautiful tract of ground
presented to the young couple by Father Read adjoining his own. While
this was being built they lived at the Read homestead, and the loom was
kept busy preparing the housekeeping outfit. In those days this was
made of linen, bleached and spun and woven by the women of the
household. Cotton was just coming into use, and Lucy Anthony was
considered very fortunate because she could have a few sheets and
pillow-cases which were half cotton.

The manufacture of cotton becoming a prominent industry in New England
at this time, the alert mind of Daniel Anthony conceived the idea of
building a factory and using the waters of Tophet brook and of a rapid
little stream which flowed through the Read farm. This was done, and
proved a success from the beginning. A document is still in existence
by which "D. Read agrees to let D. Anthony have as much water from the
brook on his farm as will run through a hole six inches in diameter."
This was conveyed by an aqueduct, made from hollow logs, to the factory
where it turned the over-shot wheel and furnished power to the
twenty-six looms. The factory hands for the most part came down from
the Green mountain regions, glad of an opportunity never before enjoyed
of earning wages and supporting themselves. They were girls of
respectability, and, as was the custom then, boarded with the families
of the mill-owners. Those of the Anthony factory were divided between
the wife and Hannah Anthony Hoxie, a married sister. Lucy Anthony soon
became acquainted with the stern realities of life. Her third baby was
born when the first was three years and two months old. That summer she
boarded eleven factory hands, who roomed in her house, and she did all
the cooking, washing and ironing, with no help except that of a
thirteen-year-old girl, who went to school and did "chores" night and
morning. The cooking for the family of sixteen was done on the hearth
in front of the fire-place and in a big brick oven at the side. Daniel
Anthony was a generous man, loved his wife and was well able to hire
help, but such a thing was not thought of at that time. No matter how
heavy the work, the woman of the household was expected to do it, and
probably would have been the first to resent the idea that assistance
was needed.

During the first seventeen years of this marriage eight children were
born. One died at birth and one at the age of two years. The eldest,
born July 1, 1818, was named for the wife of William Penn, who married
a member of the Anthony family, Gulielma Penn, which was contracted to
Guelma. Susan was the second child, born February 15, 1820, and named
for an aunt, Susan Anthony Brownell. She herself adopted the initial
"B" when older, but never claimed or liked the full name.[3]

[Illustration:

BIRTHPLACE OF SUSAN B. ANTHONY, ADAMS, MASS.
(BORN IN ROOM SHADED BY TREE.)]

Lucy Read Anthony was of a very timid and reticent disposition and
painfully modest and shrinking. Before the birth of every child she was
overwhelmed with embarrassment and humiliation, secluded herself from
the outside world and would not speak of the expected little one even
to her mother. That mother would assist her overburdened daughter by
making the necessary garments, take them to her home and lay them
carefully away in a drawer, but no word of acknowledgment ever passed
between them. This was characteristic of those olden times, when there
were seldom any confidences between mothers and daughters in regard to
the deepest and most sacred concerns of life, which were looked upon as
subjects to be rigidly tabooed. Susan came into the world in a cold,
dreary season. The event was looked forward to with dread by the
mother, but when the little one arrived she received a warm and loving
welcome. She was born into a staid and quiet but very comfortable home,
where great respect and affection existed between father and mother.

William Cullen Bryant, whose birth-place was but twenty miles distant,
wrote of this immediate locality:

I stand upon my native hills again,
Broad, round and green, that in the summer sky,
With garniture of waving grass and grain,
Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;
While deep the sunless glens are scooped between,
Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

Each night in early childhood she watched the sun set behind the great
dome of "Old Greylock," that noble mountain-peak so famed in the
literature of Berkshire, from whose lofty summit one looks across four
States. "It lifts its head like a glorified martyr," said Beecher, and
Julia Taft Bayne wrote:

Come here where Greylock rolls
Itself toward heaven; in these deep silences,
World-worn and fretted souls,
Bathe and be clean.

To the child's idea its top was very close against the sky, and its
memory and inspiration remained with her through life.

Susan was very intelligent and precocious. At the age of three she was
sent to the grandmother's to remain during the advent of the fourth
baby at home, and while there was taught to spell and read. Her memory
was phenomenal, and she had an insatiable ambition, especially for
learning the things considered beyond a girl's capacity.

The mother was most charitable, always finding time amidst her own
family cares to go among the sick and poor of the neighborhood. One of
Susan's childish grievances, which she always remembered, was that the
"Sunday-go-to-meeting" dresses of the three little Anthony girls were
lent to the children of a poor family to wear at the funeral of their
mother, while she and her sisters had to wear their old ones. She
thought these were good enough to lend. She had no toys or dolls except
of home manufacture, but her rag baby and set of broken dishes afforded
just as much happiness as children nowadays get from a roomful of
imported playthings.

To go to school the children had to pass Grandmother Read's, and they
were always careful to start early enough to stop there for a fresh
cheese curd and a drink of "coffee," made by browning crusts of rye and
Indian bread, pouring hot water over them and sweetening with maple
sugar. Then in the evening they would stop again for some of the
left-over, cold boiled dinner, which was served on a great pewter
platter, a big piece of pork or beef in the center and, piled all
round, potatoes, cabbage, turnips, beets, carrots, etc. The story runs
that, when the mother remonstrated with the children for bothering the
grandmother for what they could have at home, Susan replied, "Why,
grandma's potato peelings are better than your boiled dinners." The
Anthonys and Reads used white flour and real coffee on state occasions,
but very few families could afford such luxuries.

One of the recollections of Grandmother Anthony's house is of the
little closet under the parlor stairs, where was set the tub of maple
sugar, and, while the elders were chatting over neighborhood affairs,
the children would gather like bees around this tub and have a feast.
Always when they left, they were loaded down with apples, doughnuts,
caraway cakes and other toothsome things which little ones love. Along
the edges of the pantry shelves hung rows of shining pewter porringers,
and the pride of the children's lives was to eat "cider toast" out of
them. This was made by toasting a big loaf of brown bread before the
fire, peeling off the outside, toasting it again, and finally pouring
over these crusts hot sweetened water and cider. The dish, however,
which was relished above all others was "hasty pudding," cooked slowly
for hours, then heaped upon a platter in a great cone, the center
scooped out and filled with sweet, fresh butter and honey or maple
syrup.

In those days every sideboard was liberally supplied with rum, brandy
and gin, and every man drank more or less, even the elders and
preachers. When the farmers came down the mountain road with their
loads of wood or lumber, they always stopped at Grandfather Read's for
a slice of bread and cheese and a drink of hard cider, but the elders
and preachers were regaled with something stronger. This was the
custom, and criticism would have been considered fanatical.

The little factory nourished and produced many yards of excellent
cotton cloth. A store was opened in one corner of the house to supply
the wants of the employes and neighbors, and the Anthonys enjoyed a
plenty and prosperity somewhat unusual where small incomes and close
economy were the rule.

[Footnote 1: Her oldest daughter, Hannah, became a famous Quaker
preacher.]

[Footnote 2: A wedding trip was taken to Palatine Bridge, Deerfield,
Union Springs, Farmington, Rochester and other points in New York
State, to visit relatives of both families, all the long journey being
made in a light one-horse wagon, many miles of it over corduroy roads.]

[Footnote 3: Hannah was born September 15, 1821; Daniel Read, named for
father and grandfather, was born August 22, 1824; Mary S., April 2,
1827; Eliza Tefft, April 22, 1832, and Jacob Merritt, April. 19, 1834.
At the present writing, 1897, Susan, Daniel, Mary and Merritt still
survive, aged seventy-seven, seventy-three, seventy and sixty-three,
all remarkably vigorous in mind and body; a family of few words, quiet,
undemonstrative and yet knit together with bonds of steel, loyal to
each other in every thought and each ready to make any sacrifice for
the others.]




CHAPTER II.

GIRLHOOD AND SCHOOL-LIFE.

1826--1838.


By 1826, Daniel Anthony had become so well-known for business
management that he received an offer from Judge John McLean, of
Battenville, Washington county, N.Y., who already had built a factory
there, to go into cotton manufacturing on an extensive scale, the judge
to furnish capital, Mr. Anthony executive ability. There was much
opposition from the two older families to having their children go so
far away (forty-four miles) and Lucy Anthony's heart was almost broken
at the thought of leaving her aged father and mother, but Daniel was
too good a financier to lose such an opportunity. So on a warm, bright
July morning the goods were started and the judge and his grandson,
Aaron McLean, came with a big green wagon and two fine horses to take
the family to Battenville. Young Aaron little thought as he lifted the
eight-year-old Guelma into the wagon that he was taking with him his
future wife. The new home was in a pretty village nestled among the
hills on the Battenkill. The first year the Anthonys lived in part of
Judge McLean's house, where were two slaves not yet manumitted, and the
children saw negroes for the first time and were dreadfully frightened.
Afterwards the family moved into an old but comfortable
story-and-a-half house where they remained several years.

Meanwhile a great deal of expensive machinery had been put into the
factory and a large brick store erected. For a long time Daniel Anthony
had been very much interested in the temperance cause. At Adams he had
sold liquor, like every other merchant, but when a man was found by the
roadside frozen to death with an empty jug which told the story,
although Mr. Anthony had not sold him the rum, he resolved, as this was
only one of many distressing cases, to sell no more. He was the first
in that locality to put intoxicating liquors out of his store.

He had not thought to discuss this question with Judge McLean when
their contract was made, and had gone to Troy and selected goods for
the store. The judge looked on while they were being unloaded and
finally asked, "Why, Anthony, where are the rum barrels?" "There aren't
any," he answered. "You don't expect to keep store without rum, do you?
If you don't 'treat,' nobody will trade with you," said the judge.
"Well, then I'll close the store," was the reply. It was opened; the
farmers would come in, look around, peer behind the counter, finally go
down cellar and make a search, and then declare they would not trade at
a temperance store; but, as they found here the best goods and lowest
prices, with square dealing, they could not afford to go elsewhere and
the store soon enjoyed a large business.

When it was decided to build a number of tenement houses, the judge
said, "The men will not come to the 'raising' unless they can have
their gin." "Then the houses will not be raised," replied Mr. Anthony,
and sent out the invitations. His wife made great quantities of
lemonade, "training-day" gingerbread, doughnuts and the best of tea and
coffee. Everybody came, things went off finely, not an accident during
the day and all went home sober, having learned, for the first time,
that there could be a house-raising without liquor.

[Illustration:

TEMPORARY HOME OF THE ANTHONYS, BATTENVILLE, N.Y., 1826
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN 1897. SUSAN AND MERRITT IN FOREGROUND.]

But the battle had to be fought continually. A saw-mill and a
grist-mill were built and no man was employed who drank to excess. The
tavern keeper, who had expected to reap a rich harvest from the
factory, was very indignant at the temperance regulations. He put every
temptation in the way of the mill-hands, but Daniel Anthony remained
firm. Among his papers are found several letters of repentance and
pledges from his men who had fallen from grace and wanted another
trial. He organized a temperance society, composed almost entirely of
his men and women employes. The pledge, as was the custom, required
"total abstinence from distilled liquor," but allowed wine and cider.
He also established an evening school for them, many never having had
any chance for an education, and it became unpopular not to attend.
This was in session also a few hours on Sunday. It was taught by Mr.
Anthony himself or his own family teacher without expense to the
pupils. Everything about the factory was conducted with perfect system
and order. Each man had a little garden around his house. Mr. Anthony
looked upon his employes as his family and their mental and moral
culture as a duty. Even thus early he was so strong an opponent of
slavery that he made every effort to get cotton for his mills which was
not produced by slave labor.

The only persons ever allowed to smoke or drink intoxicants in the
Anthony home were Quaker preachers. The house was half-way between
Danby, Vt., and Easton, N.Y., where the Quarterly Meetings were held
and the preachers and elders stopped there on their way. In a closet
under the stairs were a case of clay pipes, a paper of tobacco and
demijohns of excellent gin and brandy, from which the "high seat"
brothers were permitted to help themselves. It is not surprising to
find in the annals that a dozen or more would drop in to get one of
Mrs. Anthony's good dinners and the refreshments above mentioned.

In the spring of 1832 a brick-kiln was burned in preparation for the
new house. Mrs. Anthony boarded ten or twelve brick-makers and some of
the factory hands, with no help but that of her daughters Guelma, Susan
and Hannah, aged fourteen, twelve and ten. When the new baby came,
these three little girls did all the work, cooking the food and
carrying it four or five steps up from the kitchen to the mother's room
to let her see if it were nicely prepared and if the dinner-pails for
the men were properly packed.

Soon after this, Mr. Anthony remarked that one of the "spoolers" was
ill and there was no one to do her work. Susan and Hannah had spent
many hours watching the factory girls, and at once raised a clamor to
take the place of the sick "spooler." The mother objected, but the
father, who always encouraged his children in their independent ideas,
interceded and finally they were allowed to draw straws to decide which
should go, the winner to divide her wages with the loser. The lot fell
to Susan, who worked faithfully every day for two weeks and received
full wages, $3. Hannah, with her $1.50, bought a green bead bag, then
considered the crowning glory of a girl's wardrobe. Susan purchased
half a dozen pale-blue coffee cups and saucers, which she had heard her
mother wish for, and presented them to her with a happy heart.

The next summer the house was built, the finest in that part of the
country, a two-and-a-half-story brick with fifteen rooms and all the
conveniences then known. Quakers never celebrate Christmas, but the
Anthonys, having lived now for seven years in a Presbyterian
neighborhood, decided to give the children a Christmas party in the new
home. The walls had a beautiful hard finish, the woodwork was tinted
light green and the new flag-bottomed chairs were painted black.
Between the rough boots of the country youths and the chairs pushed or
tipped against the wall, both woodwork and plastering were almost
ruined, and the new house carried a lasting reminder of the
festivities.

About this time Daniel Anthony was again brought under Quaker
criticism. On one of his journeys to New York he had bought a camlet
cloak with a big cape, as affording the best protection for the long,
cold rides he had to take. The Friends declared this to be "out of
plainness" and insisted that he leave off the cape and cease wearing a
brightly colored handkerchief about his neck and ears. Daniel, who was
beginning to be rather restive under these restraints, refused to
comply, but, as he was a valuable member, it was finally decided here
also to condone his offense.

Through all those years Lucy Anthony went to Quaker meeting with her
husband. After public services were over, however, and the shutters
pulled up between the men's and the women's sides of the house for
business meeting, she was rigidly barred out. She would take her
children and walk about in the grave-yard outside while she waited for
Daniel, but, as the graves were all in a row without even a headstone
to distinguish them, this was not a very interesting pastime and the
wait was long and tedious. When the little girls went with the father
they also were shut out of the executive session where such momentous
questions were discussed as, "Are Friends careful to keep themselves
and their children from attending places of diversion?" "Are Friends
careful to refrain from tale-bearing and detraction?" "Are Friends
careful to send their children to school, and all children in their
employ?"

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